Moved to wordpress for movie-related posts. Watched couple of movies over the last few days : Akashdeep, Pagla Kahin Ka, Aastha, Rang Birangi, Vijaypath, Swati, Bin Phere Hum Tere and Sanjog. But dont have time to write about all of them. Hopefully, someday I'll get to write at least a few lines about all the movies that I have seen.
Zeenat Aman, as she turns 58 today, here's wishing her a very happy birthday!!!!
Upon making her debut in Bollywood, Aman was credited with bringing the Western heroine look to Hindi cinema and she revolutionized the portrayal of Indian Women in its cinema.
1. Chura liya hai tumne (Yaadon Ki Baaraat, 1973) : She pursued Vijay Arora by strumming her guitar singing "Churaliya hai" in the Nasir Hussain's hit film "Yaadon Ki Barat" and she looked so gorgeous!!!
This film stands apart for the amazing soundtrack composed by R D Burman. The album shines with songs like Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Meri Soni, Lekar Hum Diwana Dil, Churaliya Hai Tum Ne and Aapke Kamare Mein all of which are chart-busting scores.
2. Maine poochha chhand se (Abdullah, 1980) : This movie was dirrected by Sanjay Khan, starring - Raj Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Zeenat Aman and himself in the lead role. R D Burman composes the fabulous music with lyrics by Anand Bakshi.
3. Yashomati maaiya se bole nandlala (Satyam Shivam Sundaram, 1978) : Zeenat Aman is a revelation in this Raj Kapoor's film, which also stars Shashi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure. Laxmikant Pyarelal's music is an asset to the film and the soul stirring songs by Lata Mangeshkar are wonderful.
4. Dum maro dum (Hare Raama Hare Krishna, 1971) : Dev Anand offered Zaheeda (his second heroine in Prem Pujari) the role of sister in Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Not realizing the importance of this secondary role, Zaheeda wanted the lead female part (eventually played by Mumtaz), and she opted out. Aman was chosen as a last-minute replacement. Upon completion of shooting, Zeenat began packing bags to move to Malta with her mother and German step father (Mr. Heinz) for his job posting. When Dev Anand received feedback on rushes for the film, he insisted that Zeenat and her parents hold off on the move until the film is released and its fate decided, with reluctance they agreed.
The film was an instant hit and Zeenat walked away with all the accolades shunning Mumtaz - never before had the Hindi cinema seen a newcomer overshadow the reigning queen. She won the Filmfare Award as Best Supporting Actress. For the first time, the Indian audience accepted a woman who played a 'less than pure' role in a movie.
5. Do lafzon ki (The Great Gambler, 1979) : Amitabh Bachchan arrives in dual role in this fast paced action thriller. Zeenat Aman and Neetu Singh play the female lead. The film is directed by Shakti Samanta. Music by R.D. Burman is good and the evergreen song Do Lafzon Ki Hai, Pehle and Tum Kitne Din are classic song by all standards.
6. Panna ko tamanna hai (Heera Panna, 1973) : R D Burman scores are gleaming for this film. Produced and directed by Dev Anand this romantic film has Rakhee and Zeenat Aman (as sisters) in the lead cast other than himself. Anand Bakshi pens the beautiful lyrics. Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar are in their best with Bahut Door Chale and Panna Ki Tamanna.
7. Hum dono do premi (Ajanabee, 1974): R D Burman is once again at his best with wonderful songs like Bheegi Bheegi Raaton Mein, Ek Ajanabee Haseena Se, and Hum Dono Do Premi.
8. Main na bhulunga (Roti Kapada Aur Makaan, 1974): One of my favourite Lata-Mukesh duets.
9. Laila main laila (Qurbani, 1980) : The song and the video says it all!!! She was a real diva.
10. Jiska mujhe tha intezaar Don (1978) : 1978 could have been a disaster year for Zeenat, because of the diminishing box office returns of Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Shalimar, but it was Don that came to the rescue and set her career soaring again. Her role of a Westernized revenge-seeking action heroine contributed to the film's huge success.
Aman's sultry persona was a contrast to many of the more conservative stars of the era. At a time when heroines were obedient wives and lovers on screen, Aman was drawn to more unconventional roles - she was cast as the opportunist who deserts her jobless lover for a millionaire (Roti Kapda Aur Makaan), the ambitious girl who considers aborting her baby to pursue a career (Ajnabee), the happy hooker (Manoranjan), the disenchanted hippie (Hare Rama Hare Krishna), the girl who falls in love with her mother's one-time lover (Prem Shastra), and a woman married to a caustic cripple but involved in an extramarital relationship (Dhund). She managed to balance these roles with acting in more conventional films such as Chori Mera Kaam, Chhaila Babu, Dostana, Insaaf ka Tarazu and Lawaaris, which is considered by many to be a landmark in Indian Cinema.
She won Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna' and was nominated for Filmfare Best Actress for 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram' and 'Insaaf Ka Tarazu.'
11th Nov, the day marked the birth anniversary of two very versatile bollywood personalities : Mala Sinha and Johnny Walker. Now that I have found a new hobby of blogging, I wanted to do list on both of them. Since dustedoff has done such a great job of listing Johnny Walker's songs that I dont even want to give it a try . I’ll have to copy-paste the entire post otherwise :-) So I'm concentrating only on Mala Sinha. And here I go..............But before I proceed further, I would like to mention that this walk down Mala Sinha's memory lane, wouldnt have been possible without giving credits to lots of other people - Directors, Producers, Music Composers, Lyricist but most important of all Lata Mangeshkar and Geeta Dutt.
1. Aap ke nazaron ne samjha (Anpad, 1962) : It's such a great composition - this is one of my all time favourites. This song has it all...the anxeity, comfort, excitement and happiness of being in love and being loved in return
2. Milti hai zindagi mein mohabbat kabhi kabhi (Aankhen, 1968) : Love the way she pursues her hero, Dharamji in this song.
3. Tere Pyar Ka Aasara Chahta Hoon (Dhool ka Phool, 1959): A playful number from Dhool Ka Phool, where both Rajendra Kumar and Mala Sinha are singing on the stage in college. They flirt, sing compliments and tease, both trying to outdo each other. This was yash Chopra's directorial debut and one of Mala ji's first major successful films.
4. Mujhe kitna pyaar hai tumse (Dil Tera Deewana, 1962) : Mujhe kitna pyaar hai tumse apne hi dil se poocho tum....the lyrics by Shailendra is so simple and yet so meaningful, Shankar Jaikishan's music is lovely. And the voice of Lataji and Rafi saheb on Mala and Shammi - simply amazing. This song is so very romantic.
5. Basanta nai basna khojchha (Maitighar, 1966) : Maitighar means Mayaka (in Hindi) and girl's parents house (In English). As far as I know this is the only Nepali movie of hers. Couldnt find a song on youtube with subtitles but the first 2 lines mean : Basanta Nai basna khojcha yaha lolaero yo ho mero pran bhanda pyaro Maitighar
[This is the place that Spring (season) always wishes to stay, this is the place that I love more than my life, my maitighar]
C.P Lohani, her hero in this movie is her real life hero as well. After working on this movie together, they fell in love and got married. Here's a pic of their wedding :
6. Hum aapke aankhon mein (Pyaasa, 1957) : A ligh-hearted flirty and teasing number in otherwise a very intense and serious movie. Geeta Dutt and Rafi saheb singing for Malaji and Guru Dutt, a gem of a song.
7. Dheere dheere chal chand gagan pe (Love marriage (1959) : Highly romantic song picturised in such a funny way that it will definitely bring a smile on your face and leave you wanting to fall in love :-)
8. Bol meri taqdeer mein (Hariyali aur Rasta, 1962) : Very beautiful song. They sound so helpless-ly in love. Had fallen in love with the starcast, songs, music and story...actually with everything in this movie, the very first time I saw it (yes, I have seen it couple of times). Songs added to the story in those days, they had a purpose and what a situational song this is.
9. Chup ke se dil de de (Maryada, 1971) : Hero actually threatening the heroine to give him her heart!!! Picturised on Mala ji and Rajesh Khanna, this is a very cute song.
10.Taaron ki zubaan par (Nausherwan-E-Adil, 1957) : Havent seen this movie yet, had heard this song on radio (Vividh Bharati) long long ago but have always liked it. Such a melodious song!
Movies like Gumrah, Geet, Himalaya ke God Mein, Phir Kab Milogi, Phir Subah Hogi, Gyarah Hazaar Ladkiyaan, Pooja Ke Phool, Do Kaliyan, Mere Huzoor etc have such great numbers. Listing only 10 of her songs is a tough job. I could easily have made a list of 50 songs, but thought that I will need them for the years to come as well.
To start with - I went for this movie coz the trailer was funny, interesting and silly at the same time :
I missed the first 15 mins, so I dont know how the characters were introduced.
Prem Shankar Sharma (Ranbir) lives in a small town and is the founder/president of Happy Club. A club that guarantees its members of lifetime happiness. But they (Prem and his friends) actually engage themselves in kidnapping girls and uniting them with their lovers (they consider this as the main goal of their club). He's a school drop-out, failed in class 9 and has no aim in life. He's least bothered about his future, has absolutely no career plans and is just happy wearing the Happy Club's President badge. His father disapproves of what he does but his mom, like all Hindi film moms, loves her son unconditionally. She also beleives that one day he'll do something great/heroic and his photo will be printed in the front page of a newspaper. From what I gathered (as I missed this part), Jenny (Katrina) first sees Prem and his friends (the other founders of Happy Club) kidnapping a girl.
She and her family are new in town. Prem and Co. make a fool out of her father and forcefully make him take a flat. Then they almost force him into taking membership of their club. After witnessing all this she misreads him completely, almost hands him over to police. But when she realizes that kidnapping was in the name of love, she saves him from police and they eventually become friends (to fight again) :P
Prem goes to her house with flowers to thank her for saving him from police, but her mom shuts the door on his face. So he climbs the pipe and goes in only to hear Jenny's parents scolding her. He learns that she's an orphan and not their own child. Now, Jenny has this habit of stammering when she's upset. When Prem tells her not to worry and that he knows she's an orphan, she gets emotional and starts stammering. Seeing her this way, our hero also stammers. He suffers from the same problem (of stammering). But our heroine unaware of this fact, thinks he's making fun of her, slaps him and leaves. He stammers to explain but in vain, until she learns later on about his problem.
In this process of becoming friends, clearing misunderstandings and a little bit of stammering, Prem falls for Jenny. She joins their club and Prem promises to keep her happy all her life. In the so called club room, prem has a huge poster - with his face on Salman Khan's body. He tries hard to convince Jenny that it's really him but she claims to be a huge Sallu fan and doesnt beleive him. He goes on to tell her that Sallu is his friend and he trained Sallu to build his body. As fate would have it, Sallu comes to the town for shooting. Jenny asks Prem to get her introduced to him. Prem tries to avoid but she's adamant. Thinking he's Prem's friend she calls out his name and Sallu comes to them. After a little bit of plotting behind Jenny's back, Sallu agrees to act Prem's friend, gives Jenny his autograph and she's highly impressed.
Prem's friends coax him into eating non-veg saying Jenny cant live without non-veg and it turns out later on that she's a pure vegetarian. Since Jenny's a Christian,
Prem goes to the church to pray, to ask god to permanently fix his pic in Jenny's heart. The entire one-sided conversation with Jesus is in broken english, and hilarious. This is one of the best scenes in the movie.
Prem, though he's in love with Jenny he cant bring himself to tell her about his feelings. Jenny in the process of describing her friend's husband defines a nice guy as someone who's sincere and hard-working, goes to work on time, comes back home on time and spends time with family as well. She also adds that any girls would marry such a ncie guy. This 'Wake up Sid' conversation makes Prem realize that he needs to work as well. So he ends up working in a Halwai's kitchen to earn money and also to impress Jenny.
In the mean time Jenny's parents whisk her off to Goa to get her married to a friend's son. Prem goes to rescue her and she announces that she's in love with Rahul (Upen Patel). Rahul is stinking rich, swears he loves Jenny more than anything and is ready to go against his politician father who's dead against this relationship.
Prem puts his own feelings aside and tries to unite Jenny and Rahul. He even manages to convince Rahul's father about getting the two of them married.
What happens next is for you all to watch. How gazab can this one-sided ajab kahani get? How will Jesus answer to Prem's prayers? Will Prem's mother's dream of seeing her son's pic in front page come true?
I really liked the first half of the movie, it's a total laughter riot. My favourite scenes are : 1. When Prem introduces Jenny to Salman Khan, he's so worried and scared that Jenny will learn the truth. Salman actually asks him : Why are u behaving as though you are introducing my girlfriend to me? 2. The scene where Prem goes to church to pray. He doesnt know english well but he somehow feels that he needs to converse with Jesus in English and gives it a try. His prayer goes like this : Hello Jesus, Good Morning, I prem. Jenny friend. My god Bholenath in corner temple, u know bholenath? I go against my dharam for Jenny, eat non-veg. Bholenath knows about it I go bhoooooooossssssss. You Jenny god, I love Jenny. You no help, toh who help. Fix my photo in Jenny heart, permanently. This is really a very cute scene 3. Prem wearing Jenny's t-shirt and flaunting it as his latest fashion statement 4. Ae lo ji sanam hum aa gaye playing in the background
The second half's however dragged too long. Raj Kumar Santoshi's tried to make the climax like that of his first comedy movie Andaaz Apna Apna but it gets too loud and repetitive at times.
Katrina looks cute throughout. Ranbir's very sweet. His dialogue delivery is good, with perfect timing and adorable expressions. However I feel Shahid kapoor does a better job of stammering than both Ranbir and Katrina :P I almost forgot about Prem's superman stunts....they however look wierd and out of place in a Halwai's shop ;-D
There's hardly any story in it but it's a great entertainer. Though your mind wanders off couple of times, esp in the second half, it's still worth a watch.
I know I am very lazy when it comes to posting something here. I dont even remember what my last post was about or when it was. I accidentally came across few blogs yesterday and have been hooked to them ever since. These are blogs by movie lovers who post their reviews on movies they watch, esp old movies. And I'm loving them!!! (Mc Donald style ;-)) Reading their reviews I felt as though I was actually watching those movies. I'm amazed by the concentration with which they have watched them, the details they have conveyed, their knowledge about the characters....simply mindblowing!!!! Hats off to u guys!!! I'm literally bowled over :-D I wish I could write about few movies myself. I'm so inspired, and I actually want to. But I know I'm nowhere close to them when it comes to observations, getting into technical details etc. Anyways, let me give it a try. I only hope my laziness doesnt come in my way :P Will post my first review tomorrow (hopefully) :-)
